**Winner of the Communications and Sales Book of the Year and Winner of Cover Design at the Australian Business Book Awards 2022**
Learn how spoken words can change a mind, a community and the world with this collection of remarkable speeches by women
What She Said is an inspiring collection of speeches from passionate and persuasive women from around the world and throughout history. The included speakers come from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds, ages, and education levels, demonstrating how women from all walks of life can use the power of speech to bring change.
Author Monica Lunin has curated and analysed 40 of the greatest speeches made by strong and empowering women from all around the world. From Queen Elizabeth I to Maya Angelou, Greta Thunberg, Julia Gillard, and Michelle Obama, What She Said shows not only what was said but also how the speech worked and why it was effective.
In this insightful exploration of female wit, persuasion, and leadership, you’ll find an extract of the speech, a biography of the speaker and a breakdown of the qualities that made it so remarkable.
You’ll learn how these women:
- inspired, moved, and persuaded an audience
- understood and empathised with a crowd
- effectively argued a position
- opened hearts and minds
- shared thoughts and insights.
Across 10 chapters, each representing a different theme - from inspiration to activism to storytelling - What She Said will teach you to harness and leverage the power of the spoken word, offering the voices and tools to help you bring about the change you want to see in your world.
Table of Contents
Introduction v
1. Providing guidance, advice and wisdom 1
Michelle Obama: When they go low, we go high 5
Nora Ephron: Be the heroine of your life 15
Florence Nightingale: What makes a good nurse 25
Virginia Woolf: Shakespeare’s sister 35
2. Sharing complex thoughts and ideas 47
Brené Brown: The power of vulnerability 51
Hannah Arendt: What remains? The language remains 61
Marie Curie: Radium and the new concepts in chemistry 71
Margaret Atwood: Payback: Debt and the shadow side of wealth 79
3. Opening hearts and minds 87
Eleanor Roosevelt: On the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 91
Nancy Astor: Maiden speech 101
Malala Yousafzai: One girl among many 109
Naomi Klein: This changes everything 119
4. Beckoning the waves of feminism 127
Mary Wollstone craft: I have a dream 131
Emmeline Pankhurst: Why we are militant 139
Betty Friedan: Call to women’s strike for equality 149
Audre Lorde: The Transformation of Silence 157
5. Demanding respect 165
Julia Gillard: Misogyny speech 169
Sylvia Rivera: Y’all better quiet down 177
Margaret Thatcher: The lady’s not for turning 183
Hillary Clinton: Women’s rights are human rights 191
6. Arguing a position 199
Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Argument in Frontiero v. Richardson 203
Barbara Jordan: Articles of Impeachment during Watergate 215
Margaret Sanger: The morality of birth control 225
Angela Merkel: Speech to US Congress 231
7. Inspiring action 239
Queen Elizabeth I: The heart and stomach of a king 243
Sojourner Truth: Ain’t I a woman? 251
Dolores Ibárruri: They shall not pass! 259
Greta Thunberg: Our house is on fire 265
8. Using humour to connect and persuade 273
Nellie McClung: Should men vote? 277
Dorothy Parker: Hollywood, the land I won’t return to 285
Roxane Gay: Confessions of a bad feminist 295
Ruby Wax: What’s so funny about mental illness? 303
9. Encouraging inclusion 311
Jacinda Ardern: They were New Zealanders. They are us 315
Faith Bandler: Faith, hope and reconciliation 323
Indira Gandhi: Last speech of Indira Gandhi at Bhubaneswar 333
Linda Burney: Inaugural speech 341
10. Harnessing the power of stories 351
Eva Kor: Surviving the Angel of Death 355
Josephine Baker: March on Washington 365
Svetlana Alexievich: On the battle lost 375
Maya Angelou: On the pulse of morning 383
Sources 391
Index 397
